At yesterday's LAX Polaris Lounge opening, I had the chance to speak to the woman at Sodexo responsible for all of the Polaris lounges. We had a good conversation and I asked her what's up with tipping in the lounges. My experience with tipping has been all over the place: while bartenders haven't prompted the issue, the servers at ORD have been quite aggressive with tipping on my trips in. Upon seating and having of a menu, it's been my experience there that servers will mention they'll be happy to take gratuities. (And I'm pretty sure in the beginning, there was text in the menu that suggested as much.) When I asked one server if they accepted credit cards and got a "no", he said I could go out into the terminal at the close ATM machine and pull out cash. I've seen people tip and others not, so I was curious what the "official" word is.

In short, she told me there is no policy or procedure. Before being hired, employees are told not to expect tipping, especially in west coast locations where the idea of tipping may be foreign to Asian travelers. There should be nothing in writing for guests about gratuities and staff are to never solicit for them. (She said she'd look into my opposite experiences at ORD and elsewhere.) That said, guests are always welcome to tip for good service. I said they should accept credit cards for tips, but because the lounge doesn't sell anything, there's no real interest to put in POS terminals to accept cards.

After chatting with the Sudexo lead, I also had a chat with the bartenders about it too. They said they were told not to expect any tips but be appreciative of what they do get and quickly pocket them; they don't want loose bills or a tip jar in sight to give the idea that tipping is expected. I asked about their pay; the two bartenders I spoke with also bartend elsewhere and said that Sudoxo pays them a substantially higher wage to make up for the difference of being in a non-tipping environment. I asked what they thought of that and they said they liked the job + the pay; the workload is lighter and with a more sophisticated crowd, they thought their pay was more than fair and had no issues with no tipping.

Of course, I was dropping tips throughout my LAX visit, but it looks like tipping is more of a "surprise and delight" for the staff than an expected norm, unlike other bars outside of the Polaris lounges.